How will UK science be protected during Brexit?

I joined the Campaign for Science and Engineering as the research and public policy fellow at an exciting and challenging time, shortly after the EU referendum.

One of the first events I participated in was a discussion forum organised by CaSE to share intelligence and planned activities and identify shared priority areas across a broad CaSE membership and key collaborators, ahead of the EU negotiations. The science and engineering sector consistently showed huge support for EU membership. And leaving the EU will no doubt have huge additional impacts across academia and industry. These need to be monitored and risks continually mitigated to ensure the UK remains a science superpower.

What has actually changed in the last three months? The new Government brought changes of roles from top to bottom. So the champions of science in Government, be they politicians or officials, find themselves in new roles and new departments. As ever, this brings opportunity and risk: a sound voice for science may sit in a new and unfamiliar department, but advocacy for science may be weakened in a place of traditional strength.

UK and European science benefit from the free movement of people and expertise between countries. In the science community, universities and businesses have sought to reassure staff of their position in the UK. They have lobbied government to safeguard the status of non-UK nationals. Theresa May has tried reassuring scientists and there seem to be efforts to signal that the UK is ‘open for business’.

The single definitive commitment came when the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, announced Treasury would underwrite EU grants for research, agriculture and business. Research fared well, with a much longer timeline of commitment than was given for agriculture or business. Grants won up until we leave the EU will be honoured for the lifetime of the grant – potentially stretching this commitment well into the next decade. However, details on specific structural and investment fund projects signed after the autumn statement are thin on the ground.

Science is one of the UK’s great strengths and works to keep us at the forefront of health, wellbeing and innovation. It is therefore vital that science is on the table when the difficult and myriad political decisions that follow are made. We can take some comfort from Theresa May’s commitment to ensure a positive outcome for science as we exit the EU. The autumn statement on the 23 November will signal a reassessment of the government’s financial position. We at CaSE, along with organisations across the scientific community, are gearing up to make the most robust possible case for the value of public investment in science and research.

Author: Dr Anusha Panjwani, Policy Fellow, Campaign for Science and Engineering